Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to alveolar membranes used in dental implant surgery, and more particularly to an alveolar membrane that provides good fixation.
Related Prior Art
Generally, in the event that a tooth or more teeth are lost due to accidents, diseases or other reasons, the affected person's mastication and occlusion could be undermined in addition to his/her facial appearance. Thus, many dentists would recommend their patients to have dental prostheses to replace the missed teeth.
The traditional dental prostheses can be roughly divided into fixed and removable ones. The removable dental prosthesis, as the name implies, is configured to be settled in and removed from a patient's oral cavity from time to time, and is suitable for a patient who has more than one tooth missed. On the other hand, a fixed dental prosthesis is fixedly installed in a patient's oral cavity and not easily removed. Most of the existing fixed dental prostheses are in the form of a bridge, which uses health teeth flanking a defective tooth as its support. However, for mounting such a bridge, the two health teeth have to be seriously ground or the dental prostheses cannot be fitted.
Dental implant surgery as a remedy for tooth loss has been increasingly popular. It involves implanting an artificial toothroot into an edentulous area, and has high durability while needing not to damage any health tooth. However, the tissue at the edentulous area can become atrophic over time. On average, a 40-percent tissue atrophy can be seen after half a year. Once such atrophy makes the alveolar bone too thin to secure the implant, the dental implant surgery can be declared as failed.
To address the shortage of bone at the edentulous site, it is a common practice to perform bone augmentation surgery first as preparation. So-called bone augmentation surgery is an operation to fill where a defect is found with an osseous graft, such as an artificial tooth or an autogenous bone, and cover the osseous graft with an alveolar membrane to keep the osseous graft in shape and in position.
An existing alveolar membrane is a sheet with a predetermined shape and has a connecting portion and a capping portion. The connecting portion is provided with a connecting hole for combining with an artificial toothroot. The capping portion is provided with a plurality of holes and serves to cap the osseous graft. More details about conventional alveolar membrane products are disclosed in Taiwan Patent No. 201311218, Taiwan Patent No. 201332523, US Patent Application No. 2014/0199657 and US Patent Application No. 2014/0349251, and will not be repeated herein.
With the foregoing configuration, the conventional alveolar membrane only has the connecting hole at its one end combined with the artificial toothroot and leaves its opposite end hung without support. Such an unstable combination may bring adverse influence to the sequent bone augmentation surgery and in turn bring some worrying consequences to the dental implant surgery.